Nitheesh NH
Each year, the IRS reports tax return filings and refunds on a weekly basis, starting at the end of January until the April 15 deadline. In this report, we look at what happened in the sixth week of the 2020 tax filing season.
The IRS kicked off the 2020 tax filing season on January 27 when it began accepting tax returns for 2019. The IRS expects to process over 150 million individual tax returns in 2020 and that most will be filed before the April 15 deadline.
As of March 6, 2020:
Source: IRS[/caption]
The graph below shows total refunds increasing at a 1.2% CAGR during 2015–2019.
[caption id="attachment_105412" align="aligncenter" width="700"]
Source: IRS[/caption]
- The IRS had received nearly 68 million tax returns and processed nearly 65 million. The number of returns processed was down 0.5% year over year.
- The share of taxpayers filing electronically continues to increase steadily. Of the returns filed already, 95.3% were done electronically. Of those, 48.5% were prepared by tax professionals and the remaining 51.5% were self-prepared.
- A higher number of taxpayers have used the IRS website for information this year than in 2019: The site logged around 321.4 million visits, up 7.6% year over year.
- A total of 52.7 million refunds had been issued as of March 3, totaling $158.8 billion and averaging $3,012 each. The number of refunds issued was down 1.4%, and the total amount refunded was down 1.3% year over year. However, the average refund grew marginally by 0.1% year over year.
- Of those refunds issued, 88.9% were paid using direct deposit. The average direct deposit refund was $3,129, up 0.7% year over year.
Source: IRS[/caption]
The graph below shows total refunds increasing at a 1.2% CAGR during 2015–2019.
[caption id="attachment_105412" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Source: IRS[/caption]